St. Patrick heard the voice of the Irish calling to him, saying, "Come holy boy and walk amongst us again."
May we also hear Celtic voices both past and present—the ancient lives, the immigrant ancestors, the modern day wayfarers—and learn from their stories.

Jun 1, 2011

Celtic Prayers as Song

"Their prayers were songs, and as they crooned or intone them, they seem close to the continuous prayer the Orthodox describe as a murmur in the heart." ~Esther De Waal, God Under My Roof

(c) Copyright, Catherine Somerlot

www.catherinesomerlot.com

What a shame we don't know the tunes the ancients used when they sang their prayers. But when we listen, carefully, we can hear the music of nature. I wonder if the Celts had music like that--birdsong, thunder, the crash of the waves, the sound of falling rain.

Did they use music like King David of the Bible did?

Then David and all the house of Israel played music before the LORD on all kinds of instruments of fir wood, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on sistrums, and on cymbals.~2 Samuel 6: 5 NKJV

Music before the Lord. The Celts found God in nature. They surely played their instruments around their hearths, the way we picture traditional Celtic music being played, but I imagine they played outdoors as well, like the girl in this beautiful photograph.

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Cindy Thomson's new fiction series, The Ellis Island Series, will be published by Tyndale House Publishers beginning in 2013. She is the author of Celtic Wisdom, Treasures from Ireland (Lion, 2009). She has also written a historical novel, Brigid of Ireland (Monarch, 2006) and co-authored a baseball biography, Three Finger: The Mordecai Brown Story (University of Nebraska Press, 2006) with her cousin Scott Brown. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines. She writes full-time from her home in Central Ohio and mentors writers through the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild.